In the present commercially competitive environment, product placement and awareness have become paramount to success in any given field. To promote product awareness, many companies have utilized banner ads on the Internet. While Internet advertising has certainly increased in the past decade and a half, print advertising in the form of banner ads and billboards remains a staple of many advertising campaigns.
One frequently untapped or overlooked asset for banner ad space is the vertical sides of load-carrying or passenger freight vehicles. Currently, many of these vehicles have substantially vertical sides that are unadorned, or carry minimal information, such as small company logos. These vehicle sides are extensively exposed to the sight of the general public since these vehicles travel across the country and through urban and suburban centers where the general public is also utilizing the same roads for their own purposes. In urban and suburban centers, pedestrians are also exposed to the numerous vehicles that pass through on city streets.
While there are a few existing systems that are designed to transform the side of a vehicle into advertising space, these existing systems have numerous drawbacks. Many of the existing systems require complicated structural frames that are mounted to the exterior of the vehicle. Such frames tend to be bulky and to have considerable weight. Typically, extensive modification to the vehicle is required prior to the use of such a frame. For example, numerous rails, mounting brackets, and mechanical fasteners are required in order to mount a banner ad display panel to the side of a vehicle.
An alternative mounting system that does not require the addition of a bulky and complicated structural frame to the exterior of a vehicle is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,904,709, granted Jun. 14, 2005, and herein incorporated by reference. The mounting system includes corresponding reclosable fasteners mounted to the vehicle sidewall and around the perimeter of the display panel. While this system is an improvement over the previous structural frame systems, it does not provide the same level of security as the structural frame systems. Due to the reclosable nature of the fasteners, there is the possibility that the fasteners will untimely separate under external forces such as wind and vehicle vibrations.
Accordingly, a supplementary fastening system to increase the security of the mounting system of the '709 patent may be provided in order to prevent the banner or display panel from flying off of a moving vehicle, or from being torn off of a mounting surface due to high wind. An example of such a supplementary fastening system is described in U.S. publication no. 2006/0070282, published Apr. 6, 2006, and herein incorporated by reference.
The supplementary fastening system of the '282 publication includes a fastening device composed of two parts. The first part has a surface that is attached to the sidewall of a vehicle. A protruding stem extends from an opposing surface of the first part. The stem protrudes through an aperture in the display panel and is received within a retaining member. The retaining member has flared edges that extend beyond the aperture in the display panel in order to engage the surface of the display panel.
There are a number of problems associated with the structure of the supplementary fastening device of the '282 publication. One of the problems relates to the fact that the protruding stem of the first part extends away from the vehicle sidewall. U.S. federal regulations promulgated by the U.S. Department of Transportation place a maximum width for vehicles traveling on the national network of interstate highways to be 102.36 inches or less (23 C.F.R §658.15). Most modern box trailers and trucks are built to be 102 inches in width in order to maximize the amount of cargo capacity while staying within the legal width proscribed by the government. When the supplementary fastening device of the '282 publication is placed on both sides of trailers and vehicles that are designed to be 102 inches in order to fit just within the federal standards, the width of the vehicle or trailer increases to greater than the 102.36 inches allowed by law. Thus, use of the supplementary fastening device of the '282 publication may be illegal in some situations.
Further, due to the flared edges of the retaining member, the supplementary fastening device of the '282 publication has a tendency to damage display panels. With the standard vinyl and other plastic display panels, the flared edges of the retaining member actually cut through the display panel, thus rendering the supplementary fastening device of the '282 publication ineffective.
Thus, an improved display panel mounting system, kit, and method are disclosed herein that overcome these and other disadvantages of the prior display panel mounting systems, as will be more fully recognized in view of the following disclosure and appended drawing Figures.